FLU VACCINE RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK
Ann M. Thayer · Chemical & Engineering News · 2009
THE INFLUENZA PANDEMIC caused by the novel H1N1 virus that emerged in April isn’t the one that was supposed to occur. For several years now, health agencies and governments around the world have been preparing to fight the pathogenic avian H5N1 virus. That virus circulates largely in Asia, and since 2003, it has killed 262 people out of 440 confirmed cases, according to the World Health Organization. What the world faces instead, at least so far, is a more contagious, but much less deadly, virus to which almost no one is immune. These factors will result in transmission among one-third of the world’s population, WHO predicts. Antiviral drugs can go far in treating the disease and limiting its spread (see page 15), but immunization with a vaccine offers the best means to prevent H1N1 infections. Racing against the clock, vaccine developers have succeeded in making an effective vaccine against the novel H1N1 virus. Although ...